Passengers Leaving Hijacked Turkish Plane

Published 7:00 pm, Thursday, March 27, 2003

Passengers began leaving a Turkish Airlines plane early Saturday, hours after a hijacker saying he was armed with explosives commandeered the jet over Turkey and forced it to Greece, according to a report on state-run television.

But it wasn't immediately clear how many people had left the plane or if the hijacker was surrendering to end the five-hour ordeal for 204 people aboard _ 196 passengers and 8 crew members.

Police said that the hijacker, identified as Ozgur Gencarslan, 20, a Turkish citizen, seized the Airbus A310 to reunite with his father, who lives in Germany, private NTV television reported. He was reportedly upset because his stepfather wouldn't let him see his mother and sister in Turkey.

The Turkish Airlines plane was on a domestic flight from Istanbul to Ankara when it was hijacked 25 minutes after takeoff. It diverted course and began heading toward the Aegean coastal city of Izmir, later traveling to Greece, Turkey's private NTV television reported.

After the plane stopped in Athens to refuel, Greek anti-terrorist police surrounded it at an isolated area of the Athens runway and a top police official negotiated with the hijacker.

The Greek air force scrambled F-16 fighter jets to prevent the plane from landing, but officials quickly called them off.

"Two hundred people are two hundred people. We would have prevented it coming to Athens, but they said they had no fuel and we couldn't risk it," Greek government spokesman Christos Protopapas said.

The hijacker claimed to have plastic explosives, Turkey's Transportation Ministry said. He was carrying five candle sticks as he boarded in Istanbul and could be pretending that they were explosives.

During the standoff, Turkish television broadcast interviews with passengers who spoke via mobile phones.

"The hostess told us that a male hijacker was in the cockpit, and said he had strapped bombs onto his body," a passenger, who identified himself as Sami, told private NTV television by phone from the plane.

Turkey's Anatolia news agency said three lawmakers and a former Turkish economy minister were on board.

Another passenger, Kaan Sahinalp, told Turkey's TV 8 television station there was little panic on board.

"We are waiting. We believe the plane will take off to Germany," Sahinalp said, adding there were a small number of foreigners on board. Greek authorities could not confirm this.

The plane was parked in a remote corner of Athens' new Eleftherios Venizelos Airport. The airport opened in 2001 as part of Greece's drive to modernize before the Olympic games in the Greek capital next year.

The Greek police have for months been training a special anti-terrorist squad to deal with hijackings and other terrorism at the airport as part of its preparations for the Olympics.

The last hijacking at Istanbul's airport was in February, when a lone hijacker claiming to have a bomb briefly held two flight attendants hostage before police stormed the aircraft.

In 1998, a man carrying a teddy bear he claimed was stuffed with explosives commandeered a Turkish Airlines flight. The incident ended when he was overpowered by other passengers.

Seven months later a man brandishing what turned out to be a toy gun hijacked another Turkish jetliner. He was persuaded to surrender.

A third hijacking that year ended in bloodshed when security officials stormed a plane on the tarmac at Ankara airport and shot dead a Kurdish rebel armed with a hand grenade. No passengers were hurt.